“Listen,” he murmured. “I have discovered the process of making diamonds. Not tiny pinheads such as Fournier of Paris has produced, but stones of any size I wish, which the greatest experts in the country cannot distinguish from the natural gems. By the merest chance in my experimenting, I have stumbled upon the secret for which men have sought since the world began; and wealth beyond the dreams of avarice is in my grasp.”
CHAPTER XVII.
IN THE SHADOW OF THE CLIFFS.
For a moment Merriwell sat dazed and bewildered. It was true, then! Those few muttered words, overheard by chance the night before in the dining room of the Brown Palace, were true, and not wild figments of the imagination as he had supposed them. Somehow it did not occur to him for an instant to doubt Scott Randolph. Perhaps, had he not heard that stifled scrap of conversation, he might not have believed so readily this amazing, incredible statement. But it seemed to fit in so well with what Randolph had just told him—to confirm it, in a way—that he felt no doubt.
“Then what they said is true,” he murmured, his eyes fixed in wonder on the face of the slim man beside him.
Randolph suddenly stiffened as though an electric current had passed through his body.
“Who said?” he rasped. “What did they say? Quick, tell me!”
Dick repeated the scrap of conversation he and Brad had heard in the hotel dining room, and as he listened Randolph’s face paled.
“Who were they?” he asked in a strained voice, “What did they look like?”
Dick shook his head.